Songs for kids with strange lyrics

As I mentioned in my road-trip post Monday, I spent a lot of the car ride filling toddler song requests. I made the mistake of singing “Pop! Goes the Weasel” without knowing more than the first verse. The missing verses nagged at me for most of the trip, so I looked them up shortly after I got home.

And they’re real gems that reflect growing up in an age when life was hard (and might end by the time you’re 20.):

All around the mulberry bush (or cobbler’s bench)
The monkey chased the weasel;
The monkey thought ’twas all in fun, (or “’twas all in good sport”) (or “that it was a joke”)
Pop! goes the weasel.

A penny for a spool of thread,
A penny for a needle—
That’s the way the money goes,
Pop! goes the weasel.

(And now for my very favorite …)

Jimmy’s got the whooping cough
And Timmy’s got the measles
That’s the way the story goes
Pop! goes the weasel.

“The Farmer in the Dell” also was frequently requested by my two passengers, and I refused to sing past the cow. Why? Because the cow takes the dog, and that makes no stinking sense. I get the nurse takes the child. I get the cat takes the mouse. And the mouse takes the cheese? Absolutely. But, I ask you, what interest should a cow have in a dog? That’s where this nonsense song ends in my book.